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CMHR won't flip on Armenian genocide

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  • CMHR won't flip on Armenian genocide

    CMHR won't flip on Armenian genocide

    21:50, 8 April, 2013

    YEREVAN, APRIL 8, ARMENPRESS: Calling the killing of Armenians by
    Ottoman Turks a genocide may hurt lucrative trade between Canada and
    Turkey but the Canadian Museum for Human Rights is not about to call
    the slaughter of an estimated 1.5 million people anything other than
    genocide, reports Armenpress citing Winnipeg Free Press.

    When the museum opens in Winnipeg next year, information about the
    Armenian genocide will be included in its galleries, and it will be
    called "genocide," the museum's head of stakeholder relations said
    Sunday.

    Clint Curle was responding to reports that Turkish Ambassador Tuncay
    Babali said the Harper government's decision to brand the First World
    War-era killing of Armenians as genocide may be hindering a
    potentially lucrative trading relationship with Turkey.

    "I'm a true believer in the potential of our two nations," Babali told
    The Canadian Press. "Canada has a lot to offer Turkey and Turkey in
    return has a lot to offer Canada," said Babali in the interview,
    noting Canada's internal Foreign Policy Plan has identified Turkey as
    a key country of focus.

    "It cannot be business as usual while accusing a nation of genocide.
    It's a serious allegation. It needs to be substantiated legally,
    historically."

    Babali said he suspects Canada is not engaging as quickly as Turkey
    would like because the genocide issue is still hanging over relations.
    The $2.5 billion in two-way trade between the countries "is far from
    the potential" of what Turkey predicts would result from deeper
    economic ties: $10 billion to $15 billion within five years, he said.

    On the genocide question, Babali said Turkey would like to see a
    gesture from Canada that the government is "trying to leave this
    behind us."

    The Armenian genocide will not be left behind when the Canadian Museum
    for Human Rights opens, Curle said by email when reached out of town
    Sunday.

    "Human rights lessons from the Armenian genocide will be explored in a
    number of ways in the CMHR, including in an exhibit exploring Raphael
    Lemkim's work (he coined the term genocide), an exhibit examining the
    1948 Genocide Convention, and in a gallery that will explore a
    cross-section of global mass atrocities, including the five atrocities
    that the Canadian Parliament has recognized as genocides," said Curle.

    "This gallery will include survivor testimony, primary-source evidence
    and an exhibit that explores the diaspora community struggles that led
    to the Parliamentary recognition of the Armenian genocide."

    In April 2004, Parliament passed a resolution acknowledging the
    Armenian genocide of 1915 and condemning it as a crime against
    humanity.

    In a museum blog posted last week, Curle said it's a timely human rights issue.

    "Ongoing denial of this historic atrocity, waged in the name of ethnic
    homogeneity, makes it a contemporary human rights concern." He
    recently visited Yerevan in Armenia to see the genocide museum there
    and will be working to develop links between it and the human rights
    museum in Winnipeg.

    On Sunday, he said the museum doesn't take a position on issues
    surrounding trade and diplomacy.

    "Our role is to promote and advance education about the importance of
    human rights, and to encourage and facilitate dialogue and reflection
    about human rights."

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